


Two Kids and a Missing Pilot Go to Space: What Happens Next Will Warm Your Heart!

by eugyne (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Betaed, EVERYONE AND EVERY SHIP HAS EQUAL FOCUS, F/M, Humor, M/M, Multi, No Voltron, POV Alternating, Soulmate AU, Space Opera, Voltron Rarepair Week 2017, despite the title no one is a minor ok, exactly what youd expect out of a fic with a clickbait title tbh, keith and shay are space pirate bffs, lance is alluras little bro, soulmarks are first words, the galra are there but theyre the space mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:22:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9815549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eugyne
Summary: Hunk believes in aliens, because otherwise his soulmate seems like kind of a jerk. Pidge is more worried about finding her family than whatever stupid question she's gonna ask to warrant the response on her wrist. Shiro's mark is gone along with his arm, but he's pretty sure he was supposed to meet his soulmatebeforehe started going gray. Keith's mark didn't make sense until he got kidnapped by space pirates and joined their crew.Or: a few humans meet their alien soulmates...IN SPACE!





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is definitely my contribution to rarepair week and i totally wasnt going to post it regardless. yep. 100% wrote it for this event. :)

Okay, so, granted, it's not every day that a spaceship comes crashing down from the sky. But Hunk is pretty sure Pidge doesn't have to drag him out to investigate in the middle of the night regardless.

"It's the middle... of the night," he tells her around a yawn. "Can't we do this in the morning?"

"The feds will be all over this in the morning! We gotta go now." She's fully dressed and all geared up for adventure as they creep down the footpath outside the Garrison. He's wearing a coat over his pajamas.

"The 'feds' meaning all our teachers and supervisors?"

"Shh!"

"I'm just _saying._ For the record."

"You know, it could be your soulmate aboard."

He stops and looks down. In the dim starlight he can just see her smirking back up at him.

"That is a _low blow,_ Pidge," he says. But when she starts walking again, he follows. No way is he missing this chance.

So, yeah, his soulmate _might_ be an alien. NBD. He's got some other theories, too.

They practically stumble right into the ship, hidden as it is just behind some rocks and shrubbery; it actually doesn't look like much of a crash, honestly. He can tell at a glance that the hull integrity hasn't been compromised—on this side of the ship, anyway. Also it's definitely not a human-made vehicle, or, at least, not a design he recognizes, and he more or less remembers the layouts of every ship in the world that's public knowledge (and a few that aren't, courtesy of Pidge). So yeah. This ship isn't human.

"Are you _sure_ about this?" he asks once more, for good measure. The ship doesn't seem to have _opened_ anywhere yet, which means whatever's inside is _still_ inside.

"Hyup," says Pidge, and kicks at the side of the ship. There's a metallic groan, and then a panel cracks open and starts to slide away. She starts and leaps back practically onto Hunk's shoulders even as he screams (a fact which he will firmly deny later) and stumbles back himself.

The ship is steaming slightly, and it only increases as the warm air inside escapes into the cold desert night. A figure appears in the steam, for a moment, and Hunk holds his breath.

And then the figure takes another shaky step forward, and resolves into someone Hunk was definitely not expecting to see tonight, or basically ever again.

"Holy shit," Pidge says in his ear.

* * *

 

"I... I'm back on Earth, right?" Shiro's voice is shaky, tired, nothing like in the videos before the Kerberos mission. Nothing like it was in person, the one time Pidge met him, at some fancy dinner with both their families.

"Yesss...?" Hunk draws out the word slowly. Pidge climbs down off his back.

"Shiro," she says.

He blinks.

"K-katie?"

She takes a deep breath. She's been waiting for this moment for a long time, though she wasn't expecting it to fall into her lap like this, almost literally.

"Where's my family?" she asks.

He blinks again. Then he kind of slumps over tiredly, still standing there on the ramp of the alien spaceship he landed in.

"I don't know," he says hoarsely. "We were separated a while ago. I don't know how long... I don't know where they are."

"Oh."

Numbly, she watches him come back down the ramp. After waiting all this time, after getting her hopes up at the sight of the Kerberos pilot, after everything she's gone through—she's back at square one.

Well, maybe not quite square one. She prefers code and gadgets over large-scale engineering, but she knows enough to tell this ship is probably still space-worthy. And if they stand around and wait like this, the feds will show up, and they'll take it away. So she makes her decision.

"No," she says, stepping up right into Shiro's path, at the foot of the ramp. "Turn around."

"W-what?" He stops, staring at her like she's gone mad.

"Pidge, what are you doing?" Hunk asks warningly, nervously.

"Get back inside," she says, pushing Shiro back up the ramp. He stumbles, unprepared for her throwing her entire slight weight into the task. "We're taking this ship, and we're going to find them."

"Katie...?"

She looks up at him, frowning, more serious than she's ever been. He swallows.

"We're going to find my family," she says.

* * *

When Shay was young, she had always dreamed of leaving the Balmera and going to see the stars. Not for forever, just... long enough to get a taste of that boundless sky.

Space piracy was not _quite_ what she had had in mind.

"PREPARE TO BOARD!" the captain shouts. The pirates around her in the airlock of the Prittary Fhey shuffle expectantly. There is a bump and a shudder as they dock with the cargo vessel they have been chasing for some time now.

"You got my back, right?" Keith mutters.

"Of course," Shay tells him. Keith is her friend. He may be small and soft and not very strong, but he kind of reminds her of her brother anyway; both can be... ruthlessly practical.

"Good," he says. "You, too."

"NOW!" yells the captain, and the airlock puffs open. With a cry, the pirates charge out.

The crew on the cargo vessel give an answering cry, and start firing at the pirates. Shay steps forward and activates the shield strapped to her arm, and Keith hides behind her as they advance. He activates his laser sword as they approach a large metal crate—there are at least two crew behind it, maybe more. She pushes against it a little, testing its weight.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Yep."

He darts to one side of the crate. She stands in the center, plants herself firmly, and gives the crate a hard shove.

It doesn't slide far, but it's far enough that those behind it cry out and leap out of the way. Two go one way, and there's Keith with his sword, ready and waiting; the third goes the other way, towards Shay and her fist.

She and Keith meet on the other side of the crate, and he ducks back behind her shield again, letting his own much smaller one disintegrate.

"Well done," she says.

"Thanks."

The crew surrenders soon after. A couple of pirates are set to watch them as the rest shift crate after crate through the airlock back into the Prittary Fhey. Well, Shay shifts crate after crate; most of the pirates are not quite as strong as she is, and therefore shift rather less crates.

"Look at this," Keith mutters as he passes her, carrying one of the smaller crates. He nods down to a symbol on its lid.

"Galra," she says, heart sinking.

"I think we'll be hearing from them soon," he says darkly, hefting the crate.

"KEITH!" the captain shouts, and both start. "Stop lazin' about! Get that crate inside!"

"Yes'm!" Keith shouts quickly, and hurries onward. Shay continues as well, back into the cargo hold to steal more goods from... well, probably not honest folk, if they have connections to the Galra. It is still stealing, though.

Well, such is the life of a pirate.

* * *

"Lance, are you _done_ yet?"

His sister's voice comes over the ship's announcement system. He pauses applying his face mask to hit a button on the wall so he can respond.

"Nope!" he says brightly, and shuts off the speaker in his room entirely. He can still hear her calling his name and cursing from the nearest one in the hall, but it's muffled now, and easily drowned out when he turns on his music. So he finishes putting the mask on and slouches back in his chair, eyes closed and humming along.

"Your highness?" There's a knock on his door. "Prince Lance? You're in there, right?"

Lance groans. "What _is_ it, Coran? I'm busy."

"Allura needs you on the bridge!"

"Why!?"

"She's been picking up signals of small scouting ships for a while now. It seems we may be being followed."

Lance groans again. That is, admittedly, fairly important, and something he should probably actually be on the bridge for. So he huffs and pushes himself up out of his chair and goes to the door.

"Prince—oh." Coran blinks at him. "You know, if you get some of that goop on the instruments again—"

"—Allura will be pissed, I know." Lance sighs and pushes past him. "Let's just get this over with." He trudges up towards the bridge, Coran trailing behind.

Allura glares at him when he enters, and opens her mouth to speak, but he waves her off and slips into the seat at the defense station.

"I know, I know. What's going on?"

"We're being followed," Allura says stiffly. "By the Galra."

Lance's face falls. "Oh, shit."

"Yes, so stay alert."

"Yeah, yeah." Lance peers down at the displays, carefully keeping his hands as far as possible from his face. There's a handful of small ships trailing them; they were probably surreptitious when they were still at the spaceport, but now they're out in the open and it's obvious. "Should I shoot them?"

"No, they haven't attacked yet."

"Evasive maneuvers?" Coran suggests.

"Yes. I'm setting coordinates for a nearby system; I'll open a wormhole in a moment. Lance, keep an eye on our tail."

Lance pouts. "I wanted to shoot something," he says, though he does as he's told and watches the ships behind them like a hawk. Allura sighs but doesn't respond.

When the wormhole opens, the ships trailing them speed up; they have a decent lead, though, and as they slip into the wormhole the ships are still too far behind to follow. Lance lets out a whoop as the wormhole shuts behind them and they pop out into another system entirely.

"Lance," says Allura.

"Yes, sister dearest?" He turns and gives her his best puppy-dog look. She's unimpressed.

"Get out of here before you smear any of your goop on the controls, please."

"Sure thing." He turns back and moves to put the display back to sleep, but something catches his eye. "Hey, uh, Allura?"

"What is it?"

"There's a ship approaching us. Galra. It looks like an escape pod?"

* * *

"Katie," Shiro says tiredly, almost a sigh, as he eyes the massive ship that suddenly emerged in front of them. There's a persistent beep nearby. "They're hailing us."

"...Uh?"

"You volunteered for communications."

"Oh, right."

He actually sighs this time, as she opens the line and starts talking. He'd just wanted to get home. He'd actually managed to get back to Earth, he was _there_ —and then _Katie Holt_ of all people showed up and pushed him back into space before he could so much as step foot on his home planet.

It's not that he doesn't want to rescue Matt and Sam; he's not _disappointed_ that they found a lead so soon. He'd intended to get the Garrison involved, inform them that the crew they'd probably written off as dead were in fact alive, get real military help to get them back.

He's just not sure how he, Katie, and her nervous friend in pajamas are supposed to do this on their own. They know nothing about the Galra. It's like sending a couple of kids against the mafia.

God, he's only _just_ escaped. He wants a nap.

"They seem friendly," Katie says. "And willing to help. Maybe we should check it out. Shiro?"

He gives a little groan and sits up in the pilot chair. "Who are they, exactly?"

"Princess Allura and Prince Lance of Altea, and their... steward, I guess?"

"Huh." He's heard of Altea, vaguely. Maybe. He's pretty sure the planet doesn't exist anymore, but there's a few scattered colonies of its people across the galaxy. As long as they are who they say they are, and not Galra, it's not likely to lead directly to captivity or death. He's too tired to worry past that. "Alright. Do we have permission to board?"

"What?" the nervous one—Hunk—squeaks behind him. "We're just gonna get on an alien ship? I mean, we're already on an alien ship, but like, one with _aliens?_ "

Shiro just shrugs.

"The princess says she's opening the nearest hangar for us. Her brother will come to greet us." Katie leans over the back of his seat and points. "There."

He sees it. He takes the controls. He goes. That's all there is to it.

He hadn't paid much attention to the outside of the ship, beyond that it was huge, but the inside is white and blue and pristine, quite the opposite of every Galra ship he's been on. It does make him feel a little better.

"Let's go, then," he says, and lowers the ramp.

There's a boy approaching the ship, as he and Katie exit (Hunk is still cowering above). He looks surprisingly human—his hair is silver-white and his ears pointed but his skin is a pleasant brown and his eyes are an incredible shade of blue, highlighted by the small markings beneath them. He's... really cute, actually.

Shiro clears his throat. "Ah... thank you for your help?" He tries not to sound uncertain and fails. "We really appreciate it..."

The boy—Prince Lance, he thinks, if he's remembering Katie's words correctly—doesn't seem to notice, fortunately. Instead he leans right up into Shiro's space and peers at him. His eyes flick up to the tuft of hair across Shiro's forehead, gone unfortunately gray during his time in captivity.

"You have nice hair," says Prince Lance, and Shiro doesn't really hear anything after that.

* * *

The only real rule aboard the Prittary Fhey is this: pull your weight.

According to the captain, it's the reason why Keith is currently elbow deep in a truly disgusting vat of dishwater, scrubbing the remains of dinner off a mismatched assortment of plates and cutlery. Again.

"It is not your fault that she thinks you are not 'pulling your weight,'" Shay says kindly. She's on drying duty, again, but voluntarily because she is a genuinely nice person. "I think you cannot pull very much weight at all."

Keith rolls his eyes. Shay seems to enjoy telling him how much smaller and weaker he is than she is. "If she didn't want me aboard, she shouldn't have kidnapped me."

"She says it was a rescue."

"Yeah, a forceful rescue. From my home planet. In the middle of the night."

"You could leave, next time we stop."

"Then you'll end up washing the dishes yourself. Are you sure you wanna suggest that?" He hands her a dish.

She takes it. "I suppose I will have to leave with you, then."

That wouldn't be so bad. Shay is probably the second real friend Keith has ever made. Which is pretty sad, if he really thinks about it, not least because she's large and gray and kind of... rocky.

He hands her another dish. "Where would we even go?"

Yep, Keith has befriended exactly one (1) human in all his twenty years of life. That's sad even if you consider it's been a year and a half since he left Earth.

"I... do not know. I hear the money is good on Gillak?" She places a dried dish in its cabinet while taking the next one.

"That's because it's owned by the Galra."

"Oh."

Keith roots around through the bottom of the basin, trying to find anything that might be left. He comes up with a pair of sporks and scrubs them, then hands them over.

The ship has a dishwasher, but it's been broken longer than Keith's been aboard and the captain's too cheap to fix it.

With the basin empty of dishes, he pulls the plug and lets it finally drain, and dries his wrinkled hands. His sleeves are pulled up, which means his soulmark is visible; he rubs a thumb over it absently, watching the gray water swirl away.

"That's an idea," Shay says. "We go back to your planet, and find your mate."

Keith snorts at the idea of Shay on Earth—but, well, he has considered it. He's got enough money now to hitchhike to the nearest major spaceport and bribe someone into dropping him off on their way by, at least. It's mostly pirates and smugglers that head out that far but he's used to unsavory company.

"I'm probably more likely to find them out here, though," he says as he pulls his sleeve back down. "Why would anyone ask me this _on_ Earth?"

"I had thought," she says, "that perhaps they might ask when you land?"

"That's... plausible," he admits, glancing down at his wrist. "I'd only get the one shot, though. If they're not there when I land, I'll never get asked something like this."

"It is supposed to be fate, is it not? They will be there."

He doesn't think so, but whatever. He just shrugs.

"I just have a feeling," he says.

* * *

Pidge watches Shiro greet the alien prince with a vague sense of unease. Well, not unease, really—just suspicion warring with hope. But she's got places to go and people to find, and if she's going to do either of these things she's gotta start by meeting this alien.

So.

"You have nice hair," Prince Lance says, leaning in to peer up at Shiro's white tuft of bangs. "And you're welcome and so on. It was Allura's idea, anyway." He stops inspecting Shiro and rocks back on his heels with a grin. "Come on up to the bridge! She'll want to talk to you."

Pidge turns back to the little ship. "Hunk!" she calls. "Get off the ship already!"

"Do I have to?" Hunk wails back.

"Yes!" Pidge yells, and turns to jog to catch back up to Shiro—except Shiro hasn't moved.

"Are you coming?" the alien asks, still grinning.

"T-that was..." Shiro swallows. "My soulmark."

There's a moment of confused silence.

It's the sound of Pidge's uproarious laughter that finally draws Hunk off the ship. She watches through blurry eyes as he stops halfway down the gangplank, taking it in; Pidge is almost on the floor, Shiro is bright red and still stuttering, and the prince has gotten up close to peer at him again. He pokes Shiro's face, and Pidge laughs harder.

"What's a soulmark?"

"Ahh... ahaha... it's..." Pidge gasps for breath. "Humans have... soulmates? So... to f-find them... we have m-marks...!" She dissolves into giggles again, unable to finish. Shiro, at least, is regaining some composure.

"Y-yeah," he says. "We all have, uh, a person we're destined to be with... and the marks are our first words to each other. Usually." He's still bright red and clearly torn between shock and excitement.

"Wow," Hunk says somewhere behind them. "I was _not_ expecting that."

A rather grim thought makes Pidge finally sober up, though, and she wipes away a final tear as she straightens. "Do you... still have yours, Shiro?"

"Oh." He lifts his right wrist; it, and the arm it's attached to, are made of metal now. "No, it's... gone."

Prince Lance looks between them all curiously. "You're born with words on your arms?"

"Wrists," Pidge says, holding out hers for him to see. "And they usually show up during puberty."

He takes her wrist and squints at it. " _This_ is the first thing your destined mate is going to say to you? Seems rude."

"Yeah, well, it happens. At least it's unique." She shrugs and reclaims her arm. "A lot of people just have 'Hello' or something."

He turns to Shiro excitedly. "What did yours say!?"

There's a tense moment of silence. Hunk shuffles up behind them. Shiro swallows.

"'You have nice hair,'" he whispers. "That's what it said."

The prince blinks. "That's what _I_ said—OH."

Pidge starts giggling again. Prince Lance grabs Shiro's arm.

"Does this mean we're soulmates?"

It takes Shiro a moment to actually say something. "Apparently?" he wheezes.

The alien is apparently unconcerned by their difference in species, because he grins widely. "Awesome! Let's go tell Allura!" And he grabs Shiro's hand and drags him stumbling along after.

"I—wait!?" Shiro splutters as they disappear through the exit. Pidge and Hunk exchange a Look.

"An alien soulmate. Wowie," Hunk says, and whistles.

"I thought you thought yours might be an alien, too."

"...Yeah, okay, that's a fair point."

"...We should probably follow them."

"...That is also a fair point."

"Let's go."

* * *

Hunk kinda regrets waking up this morning. Or the middle of the night, as the case may be, and the case often _is_ when Pidge is involved. He really should just... stop getting involved.

A little late for that, though, since he's standing on the bridge of a massive alien spaceship, still in his pajamas, while a famous human pilot and (apparently) friend of Pidge, formerly thought to be killed in action, tries to explain to an alien princess that her little brother is his fated soulmate, because of some words that used to be tattooed on his wrist but aren't anymore because his entire arm got replaced with some kind of alien tech. Pidge is still snickering next to him, watching the scene unfold.

It's a lot to process.

"I'm not sure I understand," Princess Allura says. "But if we are to find your friends, I suppose I'll have time to... get used to the idea."

"Excellent!" the steward or butler or whatever chirps. "It's been too long since we had guests! I'll have to dust off the old culinary skills and prepare a welcome feast!"

Alright, silver lining: _space cuisine._

"Coran, we all know we're gonna keep eating goo," Prince Lance groans. "Don't get their hopes up."

And just like that, Hunk's hopes are dashed. " _Goo?_ " he asks.

"It's _actually_ a highly nutritious slurry—"

"We can introduce them to the 'goo' later, Coran," Princess Allura interrupts. "Right now we should concern ourselves with the task at hand." She looks at Shiro, then at Hunk and Pidge. "You said you had a lead, correct?"

"Yes." Pidge adjusts her glasses with a finger. "I was able to hack into some shipment records from the network our ship was connected to. We have a _probable_ location, and if it's not current there might be records there that are."

"We appreciate your offer of help," Shiro says. "But they're in the hands of the Galra. If you don't want—"

"The _Galra!?_ " Prince Lance yelps, recoiling.

"That _would_ explain the ship," Coran muses.

"What the heck are Galra?" Pidge asks sharply. "Are you saying you won't help at all?"

"Are they, like, an evil galactic empire, or something?" Hunk asks nervously. "A nasty species of alien? The space mafia? Please tell me they're not the space mafia, I am _not_ cut out for dealing with organized crime."

"...They're the space mafia, yes," says Shiro, and Hunk's heart sinks—as if it wasn't in his toes already. "I just escaped from one of their 'circuses'..." His voice trails off.

"Shiro?" Lance pats his arm. Shiro blinks.

"When I was still with the Holts, we were being used as bait. To capture victims for... trafficking." He swallows. "I assume that's still what they're being... kept... for."

There's a long silence. Then the princess nods.

"I know exactly what to do," she says. "Coran? Contact the Prittary Fhey."

"Yes, princess!" Coran turns to what must be the comm station. Shiro looks shocked.

"...You'll still help?"

"Galra or not, and even if you weren't supposedly my brother's soulmate—I cannot in good conscience hear solid information on a _trafficking ring_ and not do something about it." Allura smiles at them then, which somehow only makes Hunk more nervous. "We will get your friends back, one way or another."

"Thank you. Really, Princess: thank you."

Next to Hunk, Pidge slumps in relief—then immediately straightens back up, and wanders over to where Coran is working.

"So," she says, "what's the Prittary Fhey?"

Coran chuckles, but it's Lance that responds, with a wide grin that also definitely doesn't make Hunk feel any better.

" _Pirates_."

* * *

Shay is more than a little worried that they are bothering the Galra so soon after, apparently, stealing one of their shipments. She knows better than to ask the captain about it, though, so she does not complain as they land and file quickly off the ship.

And then she looks around and realizes, with delight, that they are not on a planet—they are on a Balmera. She rushes over to a nearby rock, ostensibly for cover, and places her hand on it reverently.

And the delight is gone almost as quickly as it came, because this Balmera is terrible.

"This is terrible," she mutters, half to herself and half to Keith, who is at her side as always. "What they have done to this Balmera... it is terrible."

"This isn't the one you're from, right?" he asks.

"It is not," she confirms, watching the stone glow around her palm. "But I may still be able to communicate with it."

If she can, maybe it can help them, and save them a lot of lives and trouble. She can feel the other pirates getting into position on the surface, Keith shifting impatiently next to her; she closes her eyes, and speaks to the stone.

It responds quickly, and there is a grinding sound as the stone moves. The Balmera opens a passage—a hole, really—that leads directly to their target far below. She opens her eyes.

"The Balmera has opened the way!" she tells Keith. "It leads directly to the prisoners. It is... steep, and narrow, however." She is reasonably certain she will not fit through it—but Keith will.

He crosses his arms. "You're saying I have to go alone and might not be able to come back up the same way."

"...Yes."

"Figures. I'll meet you down there, I guess," he says, walking over to the hole. He eyes it the way he eyes the dishes he has been told to wash: he knows he is going to do it, but he certainly will not enjoy it.

"Good luck!" she says.

"Thanks," says Keith, and he jumps in.

* * *

The tunnel starts out steep, and Keith slides down it quite a ways before it finally levels out somewhat. It's too narrow for him to try and turn around to crawl, though, leaving him to scoot awkwardly forward on his ass—well, at least he's not claustrophobic. Mostly. The knowledge that this is living stone really doesn't do him any favors.

The ground suddenly drops out beneath his feet, then, and leaves him dangling, then sliding, then falling into a large cavern. He lands heavily—ow, that's going to bruise, and now his hands are all scraped up where they aren’t protected by his gloves—and gets to his feet; half the cavern is blocked off by some kind of energy field, but beyond it are a small crowd of creatures, watching him curiously.

Right. Their target is people. There are two kinds of pirate, out here in the fringes of the galaxy; traffickers, and those who passionately hate them. Keith is admittedly thankful that if he had to be abducted, it was by the latter.

"Anyone in there named Holt!?" he calls.

"Yes?" a tentative voice calls, and then its owner steps forward and starts, and so does Keith, because the speaker is _human._ And so is the boy standing next to him.

"Huh," Keith says. "Okay. Well. We've been paid to rescue you."

"We?"

At just that moment, a muffled explosion sounds above them. He grins.

"Yep. Where are the controls for this barrier?"

"Over there, but—"

"Got it, thanks." He hurries down along the cavern until he reaches a panel set into the wall, where the energy field originates. He can't read it—of course—but how complicated can it be? He slaps his palm against it.

It works. Nice.

"Everyone, this way!" he calls, and waves the group down a hall that he's only 70% sure is the right one. The Holts catch up to him quickly—that name seems a little familiar, now that he's seen they're human, but he can't place it.

"Wait," says the older one. "There was someone with us, another man. Shiro? Have you seen him?"

There's a hitch in his step—he _knows_ a Shiro—well, knew—but he keeps going. "I haven't."

"Bullshit," the younger one says, and grabs his arm, stopping him in his tracks. "You're lying. You're one of them."

Keith stares at him. The rest of the group gather in a confused huddle behind them. There's another explosion above.

"No?" he finally manages.

"The barrier controls—they only open for the blood of one of the Galra families. You couldn't have opened it otherwise." The boy crosses his arms.

Keith looks down at his fingers—they _are_ scraped bloody from his fall. But that's not the point. "That's impossible. I lived on Earth until, like, a year and a half ago. Which is also the last time I saw anyone named Shiro." He's pretty sure said Shiro knew a Holt family, actually...

"I don't believe you."

Keith throws his hands in the air. "I don't have time for this! I'm trying to _rescue_ you, let's _go_." And he grabs the boy's arm and starts off down the tunnel again. He meets resistance, but he's stronger.

"He looks human to me," he hears the elder Holt say quietly. Then, louder, "What's your name?"

"Keith Kogane."

The wrist in his hand goes slack suddenly. "Shit."

"...So you _were_ talking about Takashi." Keith wracks his brain for their names, glancing back. "Matt, and...?"

"Sam," the older one offers. "Yes."

"I remember when you went missing," says Matt. He sounds extremely confused. Keith can't really blame him.

"Well, here I am." He lets go of Matt's arm to hold up a hand for the group to halt, and peers around a corner. They've been heading steadily upwards; the crew's been heading downwards, apparently, because many of them are in the cavern ahead, on the other side of a solid line of well-armed Galra members. There's a weapon cache just inside. He turns back to the group.

"How many of you can fight?" he asks.

* * *

Shiro paces the length of the bridge and back, several times, until Lance—he insisted they drop the "Prince"—finally reaches out and grabs his shirt to stop him.

"Relax," he says. "It'll be fine."

"You don't know that," Shiro rasps. He clenches his fist, the metal one, and looks at it. "The Galra are..."

"Horrible awful people, I know. But Coran's friend and her crew are professionals. They can handle this."

Shiro really wants to believe that. He runs a hand down at his face and looks down at his soulmate—he's not sure he's ever gonna get used to that, honestly—who's sitting on the edge of some kind of control station he probably shouldn't be sitting on.

"They're pirates," he mumbles.

"Professional pirates," Lance corrects. "And they hate traffickers, so there's no way they won't get everyone out safely. Even if we weren't gonna pay them."

"I want to believe you," Shiro says. "I do. But..."

Lance pouts. "You don't trust your own soulmate?"

Shiro doesn't want to admit how much that tugs at his heartstrings, weighs his stomach down with guilt—he _should_ trust his soulmate. But at the same time, how can he claim this boy as _his_ when he's from another world entirely, from a people that are free to love whoever they choose? He looks away. "W-we only just met," he says.

Lance, undeterred, tugs on his arm. "Hey," he says. "Come sit."

Shiro does; or, at least, he perches against the edge of the station, loathe to accidentally sit on something important. Lance keeps a firm grip on his wrist.

"We have the concept of soulmates too, you know," he says, and Shiro looks up, startled—could he have known what he was thinking? Lance is smiling just slightly, looking out across the bridge. "Alteans, I mean. We don't have a way to tell for sure like you do, but you kinda _know,_ you know?" He swings his feet and grins at Shiro. "I trust you. I shouldn't, because we just met. But I do."

Shiro doesn't really know what to say to that. He thinks he hears Allura scoff from navigation, across the room, but Lance doesn't react, just watches him earnestly.

So he settles for smiling back, and Lance's face just lights right up. Maybe... maybe this won't be so bad.

"I've got good news and bad news, Princess," Coran calls, and the smile drops from Shiro's face.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Well, the good news is, we've reached the rendezvous point!" He pauses.

"And the bad news?" Princess Allura asks.

"...There's a Galra fleet waiting for us."

Shiro's heart rises to his throat, and chokes him.

* * *

"There's a Galra fleet waiting for us."

At Coran's words, Shiro goes pale; in Lance's hand, his wrist starts shaking. His eyes glaze over too, and he doesn't respond when Lance leans over and asks, "Shiro?"

"Lance, defense!" Allura calls, though, so reluctantly he leaves his soulmate—that's so _cool_ that he can say that, he can't get over it—and heads to his station. His place is quickly taken by the smallest human, at least. Pidge. Or Katie. He's not sure which is actually her name.

"Do I get to shoot this time?" he asks, hopping into his seat.

"Yes, but wait for my signal," Allura says. Lance blinks, and turns to look at her.

"Wait, really?"

"Particle barrier up! We're at the rendezvous point, Lance. I don't know how they knew we'd be here, but we can't leave them for the Prittary Fhey."

"They may be good, but they can't take on a whole fleet by themselves!" Coran adds.

"Can _we?_ " Lance squeaks.

Coran doesn't answer. "They're firing! Not even so much as a warning, hmph."

The ship shudders as blasts start raining against the barrier. Lance turns to his controls quickly, launching the defense drone.

"Oh my god, we're gonna die!" Hunk yells. Lance thinks he can hear Katie/Pidge talking lowly; Shiro is silent. He keeps shooting, but spares a glance over his shoulder. His soulmate is painfully still, and the girl is in front of him, hands on his shoulders.

There's a pang of something—guilt? Jealousy?—but he has to focus. Coran is firing on the fleet now too, a widespread barrage, but Lance picks his targets carefully, taking out engines of smaller craft and slipping through the gaps in shielding on the larger ships. His little drone doesn't have the power of the castle ship, so he has to be precise.

"You there, human. Hunk," Allura calls. "Do you think you can fly a drone?"

"M-maybe?" comes the tentative response.

"Well, go ahead and try," she says. Lance glances across the room to see him shuffle uncertainly to the other defense station. It's not long before another drone joins his own and starts shooting.

"Hey, nice one!" Lance calls when Hunk's drone takes out a small fighter jet.

"Thanks!" Hunk's voice has lost its uncertainty. He actually sounds pretty excited. Together they take out ship after ship, until the largest battleship start to pull away.

"They're retreating!" Coran exclaims.

"Keep firing!" Allura says. "It could be a trap."

But the ships dart away one by one, until all that's left is wreckage. Lance immediately starts a scan of the area to make sure it all really is wreckage—but hops out of his seat as soon as it's begun to hurry back over to Shiro.

"Are you okay?" he asks, nudging Katie/Pidge out of the way; she glares at him but he ignores it. Shiro is taking deep breaths, fists clenched against his thighs.

"Yeah," he gasps. "I'm okay."

"... _Really?_ "

He doesn't answer for a moment. Katie/Pidge sighs and walks away.

"I only just got free of the Galra," Shiro finally says, quietly.

Oh. So he was scared. Lance covers Shiro's fists with his own hands, gently.

"They can't get you now," he says. "You're safe with us."

Shiro finally looks up, but Allura speaks up behind them.

"Coran. Status?"

"The auxiliary power is running a little low, Princess, but we took little damage. Systems should be back to 100% soon."

Lance turns; his sister looks grim. "That was too easy," she says. "They'll be back."

"A-are you sure?" Hunk asks.

"Yes. They came here for a reason. They _will_ return." Allura frowns, and looks out across the wreckage. "We can only hope the Prittary Fhey arrives before they do."

* * *

Shay watches Keith approach the captain from the other side of the cavern. The Galra here have been subdued—mostly killed, because surrender is as likely to get them killed by their own—and there is a crowd of aliens of all sorts with him. The captain looks pleased, for once, and even claps Keith on the shoulder before waving him off; he jogs over to Shay alone.

"I've pulled my weight for once, apparently," he tells her, hunching over to catch his breath. But something catches her eye, two aliens among the victims that are looking their way.

"Those ones look like you," she says. He glances back.

"Yeah, they're human, too."

"Is either one your mate?"

"No."

"That's a shame."

He shrugs.

The whole crowd, pirates and trafficking victims alike, make their way back up to the surface. The latter are pointed to the cargo hold, since there is not enough room elsewhere—it is cold in there, but this is not the first time they have dealt with traffickers, and the ship has a large stash of blankets for precisely this purpose.

When they have left the Balmera and Keith heads down to the cargo hold to talk to his fellow humans, Shay follows, curious. They settle down on the cold floor of the hold to talk.

"I don't know who hired us to find you," Keith tells them, "but they're probably your best bet for finding Shiro. How long have you been gone from Earth?"

"About a year," says the larger human—Keith introduced him as Sam.

"You mean you can't help?" The smaller human, Matt, leans forward. Keith makes a face.

"I want to," he says. "I really want to. Shiro was like a brother to me, I..." He shakes his head. "There's nothing I can do."

"Maybe there is," says Shay, and everyone looks at her. She shrinks inward a little—she had not really intended to say anything, but now that she has, she may as well continue. "I mean that you can leave with them, and help them find your friend, right? The captain can recruit someone out of the people here, surely she would not be too upset to see you go."

Keith's eyes widen at that, but then he frowns and looks around. She cannot imagine that he actually _likes_ this place, but he seems reluctant anyway.

"You'd come with me, right?" he asks.

She smiles, gladdened. "Of course."

"Then... I'll consider it."

"Look alive!" the captain shouts over the comms. "We're approaching rendezvous now and there's wreckage of Galra ships about."

Shay and Keith exchange a look; then they jump to their feet, and leave the cargo hold at a run.

* * *

Keith all but skids into the nearest observation room—the only observation room, incidentally—where half the crew are already pressed against the window. He quickly wriggles his way through and carves out a spot of his own, which Shay takes advantage of as well, looking easily over his head at the mess outside.

The battle was recent, maybe only minutes passed, judging by how the torn edges of the nearest ships still glow from the heat of an ion cannon. It's definitely over, though, and the victor sits not far away: a massive white and blue ship, sleek and foreign. Keith has seen nothing like this before, and he's seen a lot of ships inside and out by now. Nice ones.

That said, this ship is the kind of rich only the extremely powerful, or the extremely foolish, would attempt to rob. It obviously has firepower to match its size.

...Even if it _weren't_ sitting in the middle of a battlefield.

"Get ready to unload!" the captain hollers. "We're comin' in for a landing!"

Reluctantly, the crew disperses. Keith drags his feet back to the cargo hold, and arrives just in time for the ship to shudder as it enters the larger ship's artificial gravity and adjusts. He makes his way across the hold while it shudders again, this time from landing.

"What's going on?" Matt asks when Keith reaches them.

"We're at rendezvous. Time to meet whoever wanted you rescued."

Matt and Sam look at each other, uncertain. Keith is saved from saying anything further by a shout from behind him, though.

"Keith!" the captain yells. "Bring those two and come along!" Shay is trailing close behind her—it seems that as the heroes of the rescue mission, they also get to be part of the boarding party. Huh.

It also means that if he's gonna ditch the Prittary Fhey, this is his chance, handed to him on a silver platter.

"Come on," he tells the Holts, and they head down to the cargo ramp, which is slowly lowering. As soon as it clangs against the hangar floor, the captain starts down, and Keith and Shay and the Holts follow.

Their client's ship is bright and clean, a far cry from the Prittary Fhey. And the party that meets them is...

" _Keith?_ " Shiro asks incredulously, and Keith is pretty sure he's dreaming.

"SHIRO!" Matt yells, and just about tackles him. Sam rushes forward too, colliding with a girl who looks just like Matt and swinging her around. There's a few other people there, a human that looks vaguely familiar and three humanoids with pointed ears and marks on their faces. The captain approaches them, specifically the alien with bright orange hair; Shay meanders after her, looking around.

Sam puts the girl—presumably his daughter—down again right in front of Keith, to talk to Shiro. She turns and looks at him, brow furrowing.

"Are you from Earth?" she asks.

"...Obviously, yeah?" he says. What kind of question is that?

The one tattooed on his wrist. _Shit._

* * *

Pidge holds her breath as the ship comes in for a landing, as the ramp lowers. And then suddenly her family is _there_ after so _long_ and there's shouting and her father sweeps her up off her feet and she's smiling and crying and clinging to him, still practically in shock.

"Dad," she says. " _Dad_."

Eventually he puts her down, turns to talk to Shiro who's still got Matt in his arms, and she stumbles around and finds a boy standing there right behind her.

"Are you from Earth?" she asks.

...And _immediately_ regrets it. He's definitely human, circumstances aside, and from the look he gives her, he's offended she might think otherwise.

"Obviously, yeah," he says, and her breath catches. That's her soulmark, _dammit,_ and she'd gone and asked a stupid question just like she'd always promised herself she wouldn't.

She comforts herself with the thought that this was probably inevitable, and also with the shocked look on his face as he realizes what's just happened. It's a good look. (It's a good face, too. Oh man, she lucked out.)

Unfortunately—or maybe it _is_ fortunate—Matt interrupts their impromptu staring contest to swing her into a tight hug. "Katie!" he yells in her ear, and she breaks out of her stupor and hugs him back.

"I knew we'd find you," she says.

She hears someone call, "Keith!" nearby, and she glances over to see her soulmate—her _soulmate_ —turn away.

Keith. His name is Keith.

* * *

Shay feels almost as excited as she does out of place. A ship like this is a far cry from a Balmera, but it is not every day one gets to meet an Altean, let alone _three._ So she sticks close behind the captain as she goes to finish her business.

There is another human—at least, as far as she can tell—near the Alteans, too. He is much larger than Keith, almost as large as she is. She always sort of suspected Keith was unusually small and is gratified to see that she was right—though one of the ones they rescued is rather small, and another already on this ship even smaller. Humans come in all sizes, it seems. She turns to say as much to Keith, but he is still some ways behind, looking at the smallest human.

"Keith!" she calls, and he turns her way. As he jogs over she thinks better of the human sizes comment, though; he never much liked being called small.

"Those three are Alteans!" she tells him quietly instead, once he is close enough. "They are very rare!"

"Never heard of them." He does not seem impressed, but he has always been hard to read.

"Because they are rare!"

And then she notices that the large human is looking at her, and has probably heard everything she has said, and decides she ought to make sure he actually _is_ human.

"But you are just another human, right?" she asks.

He stares at her for a long moment, so long that she begins to worry that she has said something offensive. Then his face changes color, like Keith's does when he is embarrassed or angry, and his mouth opens and he grabs his own wrist. Keith breathes in sharply next to her.

"Don't tell me that was your soulmark," he says.

"Um," says the large human.

"That might actually be worse than mine," Keith adds. Shay looks down at him, then at the other human, then at his wrist, and connects the dots.

"Oh!" she gasps. She said his words! She grabs for his hand.

* * *

"Shay, don't scare him too much," Keith warns, but she's already grabbing the guy's hand—he looks like he's about to throw up. Keith's beginning to think he took his own first meeting rather well.

"Does this mean we are mates!?" Shay asks.

" _Um_ ," says the guy. Keith gives him a reassuring pat, as high as he can be bothered to reach, which ends up being his elbow.

"She's nice, I promise," he says, and walks the hell away from that shitshow before the secondhand embarrassment kills him.

* * *

"But you are just another human, right?"

Hunk had not expected to be addressed by the alien hovering nearby, watching the Alteans. He also hadn't expected Keith Kogane, an old classmate at the Garrison who had disappeared a year and a half ago, to step off the pirate ship with the Holts. Basically, there's a lot about this trip he—wait.

_Wait._

"Don't tell me that was your soulmark," Keith says, and Hunk realizes he's clutching his wrist, where his mark sits.

"Um," he says.

"That might actually be worse than mine," Keith continues. He sounds kind of dazed; Hunk is pretty sure he saw him staring at Pidge a minute ago. If he's Pidge's soulmate, then... then Hunk is gonna deal with that later, actually, because the alien is looking at him closely. She gasps.

"Oh!" she says. Oh god, does she know about soulmarks? _Does she know what she's done?_ She grabs his hand; hers feel like warm stone. This is so weird. Not entirely unpleasant, but _definitely_ weird.

Well, he always kind of hoped his soulmate would be an alien, but to have it actually happen... and while he's still in his _pajamas..._

"Shay, don't scare him too much," Keith says. Shay. That's a pretty name.

"Does this mean we are mates!?" she asks.

" _Um_ ," Hunk says. A hand pats his elbow.

"She's nice, I promise," Keith says, and escapes.

"Hi," Shay says after a moment. "I am Shay."

"Hunk," Hunk wheezes. "I... uh... it's nice to meet you?"

Yes, good job, real words! A full sentence! He can totally do this.

"It is so nice to meet you too!" she says cheerfully. She's still got one of his hands entirely encased in her own. "Keith has told me about soulmates. This is very exciting! I always liked the concept."

"Right!?"

Both turn to look at Prince Lance, who's grinning at them. Oh, hell, did he see the whole thing?

* * *

Lance saw the whole thing. The Balmeran nearby asking Hunk a question, his response (or lack thereof), one of the new humans barely making an attempt at introducing them before booking it out of there. He watched it all.

Of course, as a prince, he _should_ have been paying attention to the dealing between Coran and Allura and the pirate captain, but that was boring, frankly, and besides, it's not every day there's a Balmeran aboard. They don't usually leave their homes. So yeah, he was curious. And he got to see another person meet their soulmate, so, totally worth it.

He glances over at Allura—she's deep in discussion, and not paying any attention to him—and edges over closer to the two of them.

"I've got a human soulmate too," he informs the Balmeran, Shay. "The guy over there, with the black and white hair, talking to your friend."

She turns and looks. "What is your mate's name?"

"Shiro."

She spins back to look at him. "Oh! The Holts wanted to find him. We thought that whoever hired us to find them might help."

"Well, here he is. We helped." Lance grins at her. She doesn't grin back, though.

"Then... Keith might not want to stay," she says sadly. Hunk frowns.

"Wait, you're leaving?" he asks.

"We are... part of a crew. I would be fine with leaving, but Keith seemed reluctant." She looks away. "If he does not want to leave the crew... I do not want to leave you when I have only just met you, but I do not want to abandon my closest friend either..."

"Shay..."

Oops. In true Lance fashion, his offhand comment has opened up a can of weblum larvae, and he can't seal it again. "Well," he says. "Maybe Shiro can convince him?"

* * *

"It's good to have you back," says Keith.

"It's good to be back," Shiro says, "so to speak. I'm glad you're alright. When you went missing..."

"I left no sign, right?" Keith shrugs. "Alien abduction. Just how it is, I guess."

Shiro smiles. He honestly can't remember the last time he was this happy; he's free of the Galra, he met his soulmate, he found Matt and Commander Holt faster than he thought possible—and Keith showed up with them, totally unexpected. It's as though the universe is apologizing for all it's put him through, dumping all sorts of gifts in his lap all at once.

Keith doesn't look quite as excited, though.

"How have you been doing?" Shiro asks. "It's been, what, a year and a half?"

"Yeah. I've... been a pirate." Keith shrugs again, a what-can-you-do gesture fairly at odds with his words. "The captain is the one that kidnapped me, though I never really found out why."

"And you just... stuck around."

"Well, after the first week she offered to drop me off at a random spaceport, or I could join the crew. I figured the latter was safer."

Shiro doesn't know whether to laugh or sigh. He settles for an amused huff. "Space pirate Keith. Well, I can't judge you for it, you seem to have gotten on just fine."

Keith squints up at him, though. "What about you?" he asks. "Matt and Sam said you guys were taken around a year ago. How'd that even happen?"

Shiro swallows. He probably should have expected the conversation to turn to this. He's determined not to let it ruin his good mood, though.

"We were on a scientific mission to Kerberos," he says. "A Galra ship picked us up and... used us as bait. For trafficking." He looks away, not wanting to see Keith's reaction. "I escaped recently, and got back to Earth, but Katie—" Keith visibly twitches "—and her friend Hunk insisted we look for the Holts. What?"

"Uh. Nothing." Now Keith is the one looking away.

Shiro folds his arms and waits.

"Katie is my soulmate," Keith blurts. "She said my words just a couple minutes ago."

And just like that Shiro's good mood is back. "Really?"

"Yeah..."

"That's fantastic, Keith! Congratulations."

Keith gives him a look. "You don't have to say it like _that_ ," he says, and Shiro laughs.

* * *

"Matt," says Pidge. "Matt. Dad. That guy, Keith, he's my soulmate."

Both stare at her for a moment; Matt is the first to grin.

"What'd you ask him?" he asks.

Pidge covers her eyes with a hand and tries to subdue her own embarrassment. "I... I asked him if he was from Earth. I wasn't expecting to see another human! And the Alteans look _almost_ human and it just... slipped out."

Matt laughs. Even Dad chuckles.

"I can't say we knew him very long, but he seemed nice enough," he says. "A bit of a handful, maybe, but he did rescue us."

She blinks at him, surprised. "Like, personally?"

"Yep! Fell right out of the ceiling and broke us out," Matt says cheerfully.

"Even when Matt doubted him," Dad adds.

"Wh—hey!"

"What do you mean?" Pidge asks suspiciously. Dammit, it's bad enough her soulmate is a _space pirate,_ but if there's something else...

"He just... touched a control panel I thought only a member of the Galra could use," Matt says defensively. "It was an honest mistake!"

"You thought he was part of the _space mafia?_ " Pidge can't help but giggle at that. Dad and Matt laugh too, and she leans against Dad's shoulder as Matt swats at her elbow, bent and wheezing. It wasn't that funny, she knows, but she's just so happy they're _here,_ together again.

"I missed you both so much," she says.

* * *

"Speaking of soulmates," Shiro says, and pauses. Sure Keith has spent a year and a half in the company of aliens, but having one as a soulmate is still odd.

"Yeah?" Keith prompts.

"I met mine too," Shiro says anyway. "The boy over there, with the silver hair."

Keith looks. "The, whatsit, Altean?"

"Yes. His name is Lance."

Keith turns back, draws himself up, and puts a hand on Shiro's shoulder, serious-faced. "Congratulations," he says, a mockery of the way Shiro had said it to him a minute ago. Shiro laughs.

"And, still on topic," Keith adds, smiling, "my friend Shay, over there? The Balmeran? She said Hunk's words."

Shiro looks. Hunk is talking to the alien—she looks almost as though she were carved from stone, and she's bigger even than he is. He looks like he's enjoying himself, though. Lance is with them; he sees Shiro looking and gives a little wave, and Shiro waves back.

"And I thought _my_ soulmate was alien," he jokes. "She'd really stand out on Earth."

Keith doesn't respond. Shiro looks back at him.

"Keith?"

* * *

"Allura?" says Lance, turning away from his conversation to interrupt another. "Something's beeping."

* * *

"What is Earth like?" Shay asks, eyes fixed on her soulmate. "Keith would never tell me."

* * *

"Shiro," Keith says slowly, unsure. "I... I don't want to go back to Earth."

* * *

"Allura!" Lance says, louder, as he glances over at his defense station. "I think something's approaching?"

* * *

"It's beautiful," says Hunk, earnestly. "The place me and Pidge came from was a desert, and there was this incredible canyon nearby—"

* * *

"I can't wait to bring you guys home to Mom," Pidge says, definitely not wiping away a stray tear. "She'll be so happy..."

* * *

"What do you mean?" Shiro looks down at his oldest friend, shocked. "Where else would we go?"

* * *

"Do you think I will get to see it?" asks Shay.

* * *

"What is it?" Allura asks as Lance brings up a visual on his display.

* * *

"She's not gonna believe any of this, is she?" Pidge adds, giving a watery sort of giggle.

* * *

"I don't know," says Keith. "I don't _know._ But I—"

* * *

"GALRA!"

Lance's shout turns all eyes on him, though he barely notices, focusing on the screen at his station. "The Galra are back!" They're not really in range yet, still on the far edge of the system's range, but they're approaching quickly.

"Coran!" Allura shouts.

"On it, Princess!"

Coran darts across the room as Lance launches his defense drone. There's a quick, murmured discussion behind him, and then the pirate captain heads back towards the cargo hold.

"Shay! Keith! We're going!" she shouts.

"C-captain!" Shay shouts back. "I... I'm staying here!"

Lance looks up. Shay is still standing by Hunk, fists clenched.

"...Fine," the captain says tightly. "Keith?"

And Lance—and everyone—looks at Keith. Keith, who says nothing, but doesn't move either, frozen, staring across the bridge at the captain. Lance glances over at Shay's worried face, at the other humans, at his soulmate. He meets Shiro's eyes.

"Keith is staying too," Shiro says, putting a hand on Keith's shoulder.

Keith doesn't object. He doesn't do anything.

The captain huffs, and thumps back off the bridge. Lance looks back at his display; the Galra are almost in range.

"I need someone at every defense station," Allura says loudly, tense. "We just need to hold out until the Prittary Fhey can escape."

"On it!" Hunk says, jogging over to the station across from Lance's. After a moment of hesitation, Katie/Pidge heads to another. Shiro gives Keith a little shove toward the one in front of Lance, and heads to the last one himself. The Holts and Shay congregate in the center of the bridge, behind Coran.

"Galra in range in three..." says Lance. "Two... one..."

"Incoming transmission," says Coran. "It's from the Galra?"

* * *

"Accept it," says Allura. "Let's see what they have to say."

Hunk, personally, thinks this is a bad idea; these Galra guys are obviously bad news. He's not about to argue with the princess, though.

"Alright," Coran says uncertainly, and some kind of holographic display pops up across the bridge above him. There's a massive face on it, surveying them, like some kind of Space Skype call, except the face belongs to a furry purple alien. Hunk tries to shrink back behind his defense station, hoping it can't see him, oh god, why did he let Pidge drag him out here again?

"You have something of ours," the alien says slowly. "We want it back."

Hunk glances across the room; basically everyone is watching the display, unmoving. He shrinks down further. Like, okay, it's cool that he got to meet his soulmate, but he did _not_ sign up for this.

"You've been trafficking people from a primitive planet," Allura says firmly. "I am under no obligation to give them back. If the Alliance finds out—"

"I am not referring to the primitives," the alien interrupts. "This is a family matter. You have one hour." The display vanishes.

* * *

Shiro doesn't realize he's frozen in his seat, breathing hard, until two warm hands come down on his shoulders.

"Shiro?" Lance says in his ear. "Shiro, are you okay?"

Shiro takes a deep breath, and another. "Yeah," he says. "I'm okay." The sight of a member of the Galra—and one of the major families, too, judging by his species—had shocked him, but it didn't send him into a full panic attack like last time. Maybe... maybe he's starting to feel safe here.

His soulmate is probably part of the reason why. "Are you sure?" Lance asks, rubbing his shoulders.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Lance makes a thoughtful noise. "Allura?" he calls. "What did that guy mean by 'family matter'?"

"I'm... not sure," Allura says. "I rather doubt we have anyone from a Galra family onboard."

"Then, what do we do?"

There's a long silence. Allura shakes her head.

"I don't know," she says, tense. "I don't know."

* * *

Pidge looks between her dad and brother. They've finally been reunited and now this? She just wants to go home. They probably do, too; they look so _tired._

It's been a few minutes since the alien made its declaration. Now everyone is milling about frantically, like a hive of aimless bees. Her soulmate is pacing nearby, and she kind of wants to talk to him, but what can she say? This doesn't seem an appropriate situation for a "Hey, how are you?"

She's about to step away from the Holt huddle and say _something_ when his head snaps up suddenly, looking across the room. There's a peculiar expression on his face.

"Coran!" he calls. "Is the Prittary Fhey still in comm range?"

"Yes?" Coran says. "Why?"

"I... Just call them."

Keith stalks over to Coran with a frown so uncomfortable it's making Pidge uncomfortable. He waits while Coran makes the call, and then the alien captain pops up on the display again, though this time the screen is somewhat smaller.

"What?" she asks sharply.

"Why did you kidnap me?" Keith asks, lifting his chin in defiance.

There's a moment of silence. Pidge watches with confusion. She thought he had a plan, but she can't see how this relates.

"All the time you were part of my crew and you waste my time with this _now?_ " the pirate says flatly, and Pidge can't really blame her. But Keith just crosses his arms.

"The Galra think we have one of their own aboard," he says.

The pirate makes a noise like a snort. "I was gonna ransom you, but they didn't believe me. What changed, I don't know. Don't call again." And the screen shuts off. Keith doesn't move, at first, but then his arms fall lax by his sides.

"Keith?" Shiro asks.

"I used the control panel in the Balmera," Keith says. His voice is low but the bridge is silent otherwise. "They must have figured it out."

Pidge doesn't know what control panel he means, but Matt sucks in a breath, and Dad raises his eyebrows. It's obvious what Keith is thinking, but... he's got a soulmark. He's _from Earth._ He can't possibly be...

"You're human," Shiro says.

"Not completely," Keith says, looking down at his hands.

* * *

So. He's part alien.

Keith looks at his hands, as though they'll prove him wrong, or at least explain how it happened. His father was human, his mother... he doesn't remember her that well, but he's pretty sure she was human too. Nobody purple in his family tree.

Not on Dad's side, anyway. Keith never really met his grandparents but he saw pictures, they were human too. Further back, then? Or, on Mom's side? She had photos of her father, he looked human too, but... were there any of her mother? He can't picture her at all.

So he's one quarter alien? How could that even be possible? How is that enough for the biggest crime syndicate in the galaxy to _find_ him, let alone _want_ him?

"Keith?" a voice asks, and a hand touches his arm. He starts; it's Katie. Shit. That's a whole other pile of problems.

"Uh," he says.

She looks up at where the display had been. "What are you going to do?" she asks.

And that's the real question. What _is_ he going to do? He doesn't want to go back to Earth, he's got nothing there—well, there's his soulmate, now, because she's undoubtedly going back to Earth with her family. But after spending a year and a half as a pirate, in _space,_ having the adventures he's had? He'd always dreamed of going to space, he can't just give that up. And giving himself up to the Galra might grant the rest of them safe passage—they're surrounded, now—but the thought of working for the people that hurt Shiro, that kidnapped his soulmate's family, is not even worth considering. Everything in him rebels against it.

And there's Shiro, and Shay. His two best friends. Shay can hardly go to Earth, but Hunk surely has a family too, and Shiro wouldn't tear his soulmate away from _his_ family. They're as stuck as he is, but he doesn't want to have to choose between them and his soulmate. That's just not the kind of decision he can make.

Keith finally looks back up, at his soulmate. Her eyes are a warm gold, almost amber, practically the exact opposite of his.

"I don't know," he says. "But I'm not joining the Galra."

* * *

Shay breathes a sigh of relief at Keith's words. She had been worried her friend would go willingly to the Galra—leaving her, and his fellow humans, for _them._ Next to that, his heritage is not much of an issue.

She had found out, after leaving the Balmera, that much of the galaxy's migrant population—pirates in particular—are a mix of two or more species. Either way, he is Keith.

Which is perhaps why she is the first one after the revelation to ask, "So how do we escape?"

"We've only got forty-five minutes left," Hunk adds, evidently of a similar mind. That makes sense, since they are soulmates. How exciting to have one of her own!

"I can tell them I won't go with them," Keith says, "but..."

"They won't be mollified," Allura finishes. "We need a plan."

"We can't fight the whole fleet," Shiro says. "There's too many of them. The moment they realize we won't give them what they want, they'll destroy us."

His words are met with silence. Shay frowns at the ceiling. If this is truly the end... well, at least she saw more of the galaxy than she had ever thought possible. At least she has met Hunk, even if she has not yet gotten to know him.

"...Why don't we just wormhole out?" Lance asks, and everyone turns to him. Allura opens her mouth... and shuts it again. It is a moment before she actually speaks.

"Well," she says slowly. "We _could_."

* * *

"...But the Galra would probably pursue us with a single-minded intensity otherwise found only in the wild gallabeast on the jungle planet of Dazool!" Coran adds, dashing all of Hunk's hopes and dreams.

"Why?" Shiro asks. "They don't seem to want me or the Holts back."

"Well, if they consider Keith to be one of their own, then to their minds we're holding him hostage," Coran explains, tugging on his mustache. "They take family _very_ seriously."

"And me telling them I don't want to join them won't change their minds?" Keith asks.

"I'm afraid not."

"Then," he says, "we'll have to convince them I'm _not_ family."

"They'll just attack us, then," says Lance.

"So we 'wormhole out' like you said."

"Wait," says Hunk. He looks around at the varied crowd gathered on the bridge. "How do they know he's on this ship and not with the pirates? Do they even know it's Keith at all?"

"...The Prittary Fhey left before any of their short-range scanners could have picked it up," Coran says. "It may have been visible, however, but it's possible they didn't notice it, considering all the debris from our last skirmish."

"That ship _did_ look like a piece of junk," Lance muses.

"So they tracked us from the Balmera?" Shay asks.

"They knew _someone_ used the control panel," Keith says, looking at his hands again. "And that someone ended up here. So." He looks up again. "How do we convince them they're wrong?"

"I don't know if we can misdirect them..." Allura says. "Not without putting the Prittary Fhey in danger, at least."

Hunk meets Pidge's eyes across the room. She smirks, and gives a short nod. Keith glances between the two of them, until Hunk turns his gaze on him.

"Can you describe this control panel?" he asks.

* * *

"So, just to clarify," Lance says a few minutes later, "you're going to hack into their ship records, which are unlike anything you have on Earth, _remotely,_ to convince them that you hacked the control panel in the Balmera to respond to Keith."

"Yep," Katie says smugly.

"Even though you weren't anywhere near the Balmera."

"They don't know that. They also don't need to know it was me, just one of us."

Shiro has to admit, it's the best plan they've got so far. Assuming, of course, that it's possible at all.

"Will you be able to do it?" he asks. "It's a completely alien system."

"Pun intended?" Lance snickers at his side. Shiro nudges him.

"I can do it," Katie says, with total confidence. Across the room, Hunk is nodding vigorously.

"She totally can," he says.

"Besides, I had some practice back in the escape pod," she adds. "That's more than enough for me to do this."

"Well, you'd better hurry, then," Coran says, returning to the bridge with an armful of tech equipment. "You've only got about thirty of your Earth minutes left." Katie nods and scurries over to take his load, followed closely by Hunk.

"Are we sure this will work?" Shiro asks. "Admitting to hacking into the Galra's systems doesn't seem likely to get them off our tail."

"They will definitely attack us," Allura says lightly. "But if we escape, they'll focus on fixing the weakness in their system instead. They probably won't pursue."

" _Probably_ won’t?"

"It's better than definitely will!" Coran chirps.

Shiro sighs heavily, and sinks into the seat of the nearest defense station. Lance perches on its arm and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"We'll get out of this," he says with conviction. "They can't have you."

It doesn't make Shiro feel much better, but... it helps a little. He puts a hand over Lance's and shoots his soulmate the biggest smile he can muster (which isn't very big at all, but he tries).

"Thanks," he says.

* * *

For a crime syndicate feared across the galaxy, the Galra's security measures are astonishingly weak. Pidge smirks and bypasses them easily.

"I'm in," she calls. "I just need to locate their records for the Balmera containment area and plant evidence that the panel was tampered with. It'll take a little while to upload, though."

"How long?" Keith asks. He's hovering over her shoulder, watching her work, which she doesn't usually allow. They're gonna have to talk about that later.

"Twenty minutes or so."

"You've got twenty-three!" Coran calls from behind them.

"Plenty," she says, and hits the enter key decisively. "Uploading now. It'll take twenty-one and a half minutes."

"That's cutting it pretty close," Keith says. She shrugs.

"It is what it is."

"I can stall for time when they call!" Lance offers, sounding entirely too enthusiastic about the idea. "I'm good at stalling."

"This is a little different than trying to get out of helping Coran clean the kitchen, Lance," Allura says.

"I can do it, though."

They keep arguing, but Pidge ignores them, letting the sound fade into the background. Instead she looks over at Keith, who's dropped down to sit cross-legged next to her.

"Can I see it?" she asks.

He blinks at her. She sighs and reaches over into his lap, tugging his right wrist her way; he doesn't resist when she pulls back his sleeve to reveal the words there in a neat, rounded script. She cringes.

"I can't believe I said that," she says. It's definitely her handwriting, though, and she definitely did say it.

He snorts. "Me neither," he says, but not in a mean way. He just sounds kind of amused. "Can I see yours?"

She shows him her wrist obligingly. He cups her hand in his left one to steady it, the worn leather of his fingerless glove smooth against the back of her hand. To her surprise, he cringes, too.

"Sorry," he says. "That was kind of rude of me."

"Well, this was kind of stupid of me." She shakes his wrist, which still rests in her left hand. "So we're even."

He grins, bright and wide. "Fair enough."

* * *

"Fifteen minutes!" Coran shouts.

"Thirteen and a half left," Katie/Pidge reports back.

Next to where Lance's foot is dangling, Shiro's leg is bouncing, and his hand over Lance's keep intermittently tightening. He's nervous. Everyone is; Allura is pacing, and Hunk and Shay are huddled over on the other side of the bridge, hands linked.

At the front of the bridge, Keith and Katie/Pidge are talking with their hands in each others' laps; he's pretty sure they were comparing soulmarks earlier. He can't resist glancing down at his own wrist.

He can't really imagine what it'd be like, growing up with words that magically appear on your wrist. It seems like a desperately imperfect system, honestly. What if you aren't listening when your soulmate first speaks to you? Is it actually the first thing they say to you, or the first thing you _hear_ them say? What if you're deaf? What if all you have on your wrist is "Hello" and you can't be sure if you're with the right person?

Alteans have the concept of soulmates, sure, but it's not something you can be _wrong_ about, because there’s no _right._ You might get along with someone right away, but you might need to get to know them first; there are any number of people out there that might be your soulmate. You might never meet any of them.

You don't need words on your skin to know if you have.

He glances down at Shiro. At Shiro's arm, really, the metal one, where apparently his words used to be. Neither of them have soulmarks now. He feels a little bad that that makes him feel better about it, because Shiro is missing his _arm_ and that's nothing to be happy about. But it does make them equal, in this one little way.

Shiro squeezes his hand, still looking out across the bridge at Katie/Pidge and Keith. Lance squeezes back, and gives him a smile when he glances up. He's pretty sure that, somehow, they can make this work.

* * *

Hunk wants a nap. He wants to go to sleep and wake up back on Earth safe in his own bed—that he’s _still_ in his pajamas doesn’t help—and believe that all of this was just a weird dream.

Except _maybe_ Shay but he's not quite sure about her yet. She's really nice, and pretty badass judging from the stories she told him, and about as cute as a rock alien can be (which is pretty darn cute).

She's still an alien, though, and he kinda really wants to go back to Earth. Not that he can't take her with him, but... she'd be pretty hard to hide.

"Hunk?" she asks, and he realizes he's drifted off into thought in the middle of a conversation.

"Uh, right, sorry. Spaced out. Haha..." He shrugs sheepishly. "What were we talking about?"

"I asked you if Earth is part of the Alliance," she says gently.

"Um," Hunk says. "I don't know what the Alliance is, so, I'm gonna go with 'no.'"

She smiles. "I did not know what it is either until I left my Balmera. It is an organization of nearly every space-faring civilization in the galaxy—at least, all the peaceful ones. It is mostly for trade, but they can offer aid for planet- or system-wide emergencies, too."

"Oh," he says. "That sounds really cool, but I dunno if we're really... qualified... for that. I mean, our own ships have never even made it out of our solar system."

"You have ships, though," she points out. "You are probably close enough. And it would allow non-Earth ships to land and trade. You would be able to leave the system in no time at all."

"That's probably true." Hunk shrugs. "Our planet isn't exactly unified, though, but I guess we probably have organizations that can handle alien contact. The UN, or something."

She chuckles. "I hear joining is usually messy. But it is worth it."

Hunk leans his head back against the wall and smiles. "Yeah. You could come to Earth, too, then."

She smiles back. "Then we must make sure it happens."

"Ten minutes!" Coran calls, jolting Hunk back to the present. Oh yeah, he's still on an alien ship, surrounded by more alien ships, filled with angry aliens that want to kill them. Right.

"Eight and a half!" Pidge echoes.

"If we get out of this," Hunk says, "I dunno what we're gonna do."

* * *

"What do you mean?" Shay asks.

"Well, I mean." Hunk gestures out across the bridge. "Pidge is human, and Keith is mostly human, so they can go back to Earth fine. Shiro's got his arm, and Lance looks almost human, so they can probably go to Earth too, if they're careful. And I don't know if they'll even want to, because Lance has Allura and Coran here, and everyone back home thinks Shiro is dead. But what about us?"

She tilts her head, confused. "I am not sure I follow," she admits.

"I mean, where are we gonna go? I want to go home, but no one's gonna believe you're human, and I don't know what'd happen to you if someone sees you before we've joined the Alliance. And you must have family of your own, somewhere? So, if we're really soulmates, how are we gonna make this work?"

His words are like a knife to the chest. "Do you... not believe we are soulmates?"

His eyes widen. "What? No no no, I do, I do," he says quickly, and she relaxes again. "I'm just saying, we're gonna be stuck in limbo until the Alliance stuff happens."

"Oh." She sees his point, now; if she cannot go to Earth, then either they cannot stay together, or he cannot go to Earth either. "I have been away from my Balmera a long time; I do not mind not staying there, so long as I can visit occasionally. Perhaps there is somewhere on Earth I could hide, near where you live?"

"Well," he says thoughtfully. "What's your Balmera like?"

"It is a planet-sized being," she tells him. "Mostly petrified, but still alive. Within its caves, crystals grow, such as the one likely powering this ship. It's beautiful..." Her voice trails off. It has been such a long time that she can hardly recall the details of her own home.

Hunk does not seem to mind, though. "That's incredible," he says. "The place I've been training at is in the middle of a desert, and there's a canyon nearby. There might be caves there...? They probably wouldn't be much like home, but..."

"I would like to see them," she reassures him. "When we are free of this place."

"Yeah," he says. He says nothing more, but neither does she. Instead she watches the others on the bridge; Allura pacing, Keith and Pidge talking, Shiro and Lance just sitting together as they are. Coran is bent over the communication station near the front of the bridge, tapping his foot.

"Five minutes!" he calls shortly, and then something beeps. "They're calling!"

"We've still got three and a half minutes to go, you need to stall," Pidge calls back. Lance stands up and stretches with a smirk.

"My time to shine," he says.

* * *

"...I'm just saying, whether or not this so-called 'uncle' of yours—"

"They are _not_ my uncle," the Galra hisses. "For the last time, this is a _family member_ of unknown relation to me."

"Riiight, right, sorry. I forgot. Family member of unknown relation. Got it." Lance gives the screen an easy smile. The Galra on the other side looks about ready to strangle him. "Ok. So, as I was saying, whether or not this so-called _'family member of unknown relation to you'_ is or ever has been or ever _will be_ onboard this ship is definitely up for debate, because how would you even know? How would they get here? I mean, the juniberries might not be in season."

"The—what?"

"The juniberries, man, the juniberries!" Lance throws his arms in the air. "We don't let anyone new aboard without fresh, blooming juniberries. This is an integral part of Altean culture! Did you learn nothing in your Alliance-mandated galactic education?"

"I never—augh, what's your _point!?_ "

Lance leans back casually on the navigation system, examining his fingernails. "The point is, my friend, that juniberries don't even grow anywhere anymore. Our planet's gone. Do you know what that means?"

"What does that mean," the Galra growls.

"It means no one can come aboard, on account of no one can give us juniberries."

The Galra groans and pulls on his ears like he wants to tear them right off. Lance feigns concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asks. "Something wrong with your ears? Did you catch a disease? I hear ghully fever's going around. Nasty stuff."

"I," the Galra says stiffly, "am _fine._ Which is more than I can say for you, when I get my hands on your scrawny neck, you—"

Lance gasps dramatically, drowning out the Galra's words. Someone snickers nearby and he resists the urge to grin; this is just too much fun. But now Katie/Pidge is waving at him from behind the screen, making what he assumes is an Earth gesture for "ready." So he straightens and looks up at the Galra again.

"Anyway," he says, "we don't have anyone from your family or any other Galra family aboard. We just hacked into the containment system on that Balmera so it would accept anyone's hand. Check your records. Later!" He waves, and Coran cuts the comm. Allura straightens from where she was crouched behind the nav system, just out of view of the screen.

"Wormhole in ten... nine... eight..."

The rest of the group returns from their hiding spots, too, and Shiro comes and stands next to him.

"That," he says, eyes twinkling, "was impressive."

"Why, thank you," Lance says smugly.

"Two... one... Now!" Allura shouts, and as the Galra ships around them start charging their blasters, a wormhole opens and the castle-ship shoots through.

* * *

Shiro almost, almost wants to cry at the sight of Earth below them, the distinct shape of the continents peeking out from behind the clouds scattered here and there, the blue oceans...

Oh, he's definitely crying. Lance reaches up to brush away the tear that slips onto his cheek.

"You okay?" he asks.

Shiro swallows. "Yeah," he whispers, not really trusting his voice. "Just... been a while."

"Sorry about that," Katie says nearby. He looks over; she's looking at the floor. "I guess I was kind of overeager to get out here..."

"It's alright," he says, and ruffles her hair; she yelps and glares at him, but he just smiles. "It turned out for the best, didn't it?"

She looks around, and he does too; his soulmate, here next to him, the Holts safe and back together, Keith alive and well after so long...

"Yeah," she says. "I guess it did. What're you gonna do now?"

He takes a deep breath, looks back out the window at Earth. "I'm going to see my parents," he says. "Relax for a little while. Eat real food." Matt chuckles at that. "After that... I don't know."

She hums. "I'd come back out here, if I were you," she says. "An entire galaxy to explore, no way am I gonna stay at home."

Out of the corner of Shiro's eye, Keith's head snaps up to look at her. "Really?" he asks, but his voice cracks and he clamps a hand over his mouth in shock. Shay laughs and claps him on the back so hard he stumbles into the window.

Katie's face falls, though. "Oh," she says. "Um, I guess you'd want to stay on Earth after everything—"

"No!" Keith says quickly. "No, I don't. I—I have nothing to go back to on Earth." He relaxes again, looking back out the window and rubbing the back of his neck. "No family or anything. Just a shack out in the desert."

"Wait, did you say a shack in the desert?" Hunk interrupts before Katie can respond. "Is it near the Garrison?"

"...Yeah?"

"Can Shay hide there?" Then Hunk blinks, and holds up his hands. "I mean, I didn't mean to interrupt. We were just thinking, because I wanna go back, and she wants to see Earth, but she won't exactly blend in. So until Earth joins the Alliance, she'd have to... hide out somewhere..."

"If it is okay, of course," Shay adds.

"Of course it's okay, Shay," Keith says, almost incredulously. "As long as the place still exists, it's yours."

"Thank you!" she says, and picks him up in what looks—and sounds—like a bone-crushing hug. He yells and tries to wriggle free as Katie and Hunk laugh. Even Shiro chuckles, once Keith is finally set back on his feet to rub his new bruises and wince.

Shiro glances over at Lance, then, surprised he didn't laugh too; Lance, though, looks thoughtful.

"The Alliance, huh?" he says. "Shiro, would you say you're an important person on your planet?"

Shiro blinks. "Uh. I don't know about _important,_ but the Kerberos mission was a multi-national effort and broadcasted worldwide, so... I suppose I'm well-known?"

"That's probably good enough. So, you and I, we can help your planet join the Alliance!" Lance takes his hand, grinning up at him. "With your influence, and my pretty face, we can totally convince them!"

Shiro has to laugh. "You might be right about that," he says.

Allura sighs fondly. "I will contact the Alliance, then," she says. "You're sure about this, Lance? It's a lot of work."

"Sure I'm sure! I can do this, Allura," he says, and Shiro squeezes his hand.

"We can help on the Earth side of things," Sam offers, and Matt nods. "But as for _you,_ young lady," he adds, turning to Katie, "don't think you'll be going off on space adventures so soon. You've still got an education to finish."

She groans. "Dad..."

"Come to think of it, I think Keith does, too," Shiro says, shooting a grin Keith's way. "After all, he was kidnapped before he could finish. Don't give me that look," he adds with a laugh at Keith's glare. "You'll have Katie there with you, won't you? And Hunk and Shay. I'm sure Matt and I will be around sometimes, too."

"Shiro..." Keith whines, much the way Katie had.

"It'll only be a couple years, Keith. And it's not as if you have a ship to explore on, anyway."

"That's true," Allura says. "As ambassadors, we'll be spending much of our time on Earth. Even if you chose to join us aboard this ship—which you are welcome to—you would still be planet-bound most of the time."

Katie goes and stands next to Keith, taking his hand and swinging it while looking at him earnestly. He sighs—and, Shiro swears, blushes slightly—and says, "Fine."

"Then it's settled!" Coran shouts cheerfully, and everyone jumps. "Down to Earth we go!"

Hunk cheers, and Matt quickly joins in. Shiro looks out the window at the approaching planet, Lance's hand still in his, and smiles.

It's about time he went home.

**Author's Note:**

> HEY YALL hmu @[maternalcube](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/). i take prompts!


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